By Yao Cheng Pan Fengming

June of 2009 witnessed 70 students from thirteen universities such as Zhejiang University, Zhejiang University of Commerce and Industry, Ningbo University, Hong Kong Chinese University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, City University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University meet Hangzhou in a summer program sponsored by the Ministry of Education.

The annual program aims to bring students on the mainland and in Hong Kong together through cultural activities that interest them all. The program this summer focused on tea, a major element of traditional Chinese culture.

Zhejiang is the right place to start any important program with a focus on tea. Hangzhou is now the national capital of tea and tea is our national beverage. Lu Yu (733-804), a scholar of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), grew tea, processed tea and researched issues of tea in Huzhou, a key city in northern Zhejiang. It was here that he penned Book of Tea, the first academic tome on the beverage in the world, thus single-handedly set an epoch-making milestone in Chinas tea culture.

The journey of tea for these summer campers started with a forum. Wang Xufeng, a native of Hangzhou and author of a trilogy on tea, spoke about the glorious firsts of tea in the Chinese history. Professor Zheng Peikai, director of the Center for Chinese culture with the City University of Hong Kong, gave a talk about how a Japanese Zen master brought tea from China to Japan, how Japanese sado has evolved, and what Japanese aesthetics of tea is. Yang Xianqiang, a professor with Zhejiang University, lectured on tea species and chemical ingredients and health benefits. His comprehensive talk also included the development of Chinese tea industry, research results on theory, history and culture of tea.

After the lectures, the students visited China Tea Museum where they went through the history of Chinese tea culture in a nutshell as displayed there. At Dragon Well, they heard the story about Emperor Qianlongs visits to Dragon Well and visited the 18 royal tea bushes the emperor planted there. At Dragon Well Park, they had their hands-on experiences of picking tea leaves and manually processing tealeaves in a huge iron work and sampling tea drink under the guidance of a veteran tea professional. They learned the ten specific ways of processing tea with their hands and some secrets of tea processing.

It goes without saying that the program was not just about tea. It was an opportunity for students from Hong Kong to know about the motherland. Some young people in Hong Kong do not have a taste for tea and some even mistakenly believe that tea originated in Japan and the way of tea started in Japan. They even dont know about Dragon Well, Lingyin Temple and the West Lake in Hangzhou.

The program was an opportunity for students from Hong Kong to form one-on-one partnership to practice mandarin. The 7-day program served as an intensive training program. At a show at the end of the program, 58 participants formed 11 teams and staged 11 special performances. In a sense, their performances showed their understanding of the mother tongue and their progress in mastering the language.

The program was also an opportunity for the young participants to start personal friendships. Some of them had come to Hangzhou for the purpose of appreciating the poetic beauty of the West Lake, but they found friendship in Hangzhou.